


close your fist around something delicate

by luluquentine



Category: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Genre: Cold War, Consensual Infidelity, F/M, Lesbian Mrs. Borgova, Mild Suicidal Ideation, Mutual Pining, Older Man/Younger Woman, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29192046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luluquentine/pseuds/luluquentine
Summary: Vasily Borgov, on the heels of his defeat in Moscow, is given a new mission: to convince the American Champion to defect to the Soviets, by any means necessary. He has a feeling he will fail, but the ache in his heart convinces him to try anyway, if only to taste the fire that is Elizabeth Harmon. A Cold War exploration of Soviet want, American desire, and a global passion.
Relationships: Vasily Borgov & Beth Harmon, Vasily Borgov/Beth Harmon
Comments: 34
Kudos: 79





	1. invitation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bothromeoandjuliet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bothromeoandjuliet/gifts).



> Title Inspired by Taylor Swift's Coney Island. I cannot tell you how many times I watched Companion of a Sociopath's YouTube edit while writing this fic--so kudos to them for inspiring me to finish this work. They are @bothromeoandjuliet here on AO3.  
> My concept of 1960s USSR is limited to my history education, and although I am attempting to learn Russian, I am far from fluent. Liberal use of italics to denote Russian in this story.  
> As always, characters not mine--I make no profit off this work.

It is only after he lets her go, her perfume still clinging on the threads of his suit, that he begins to realise the implications of his black king held tightly in her fist. Perhaps they would have allowed him tonight to lick his wounds, as all defeated Grandmasters are wont to do after such a loss, but after his entirely non-Soviet display of affection, he finds those chances increasingly slim.

So when the KGB knocks on his door in the middle of the night then barges in a second later, he is hardly surprised. The press, he notes as he passes through the hotel lobby followed closely by his two handlers, have mostly dispersed, with a number leaned over empty glasses of drink at the bar. A few look up and over as Vasily passes, but when they see the government agents at his back, they quickly avert their eyes.

He is ushered into a car, and from there, into an austere building with cold hallways, the bitter Moscow winter having seeped through the walls and under the doors. They lead him to an even colder room, and the men waiting there have many questions, but only one that matters: what are they to do with a man who lost a chess game to an American on his own home ground?

" _I am the world’s best chess player_ ,” he insists over and over to these men who do not seem to comprehend the previous night’s game no matter how many times he explained it. “ _I have and can defeat her again._ ” Vasily is careful to only impersonally think of her as Miss Harmon, or better yet, to not think of her at all. Down that road could only lay fire and destruction—yet he finds the lingering warmth of her pressed up against him keeps him from shivering in his suit.

“ _You had better_ ,” one of the men sneers, shaking a fist at him in unsubtle warning. Vasily allows himself to relax infinitesimally; after all, this is a promise he feels he can deliver on—despite Harmon’s triumph, he is still the World Champion, with years of playing experience on his side. A Grandmaster such as Vasily Borgov is not so easily defeated.

He is surprised, then, when they don’t dismiss him with a curt shove of his chair, as that is how these meetings tend to end. Instead, the other officer—recently promoted, judging by the quality of the stars on his shoulder boards—drags out the metal chair on the other side of the table and sits down heavily, attempting to exert some of his newfound power. “ _You have family_ ,” this Colonel Smirmov says, flipping open the file sitting before him. “ _Attractive_ ,” he remarks and leers at a photo of Borgov’s wife and child, hand-in-hand outside a store.

The man continues to flip through the images—even upside-down, Vasily can recognize the press prints of Sonya and himself at a number of chess tournaments and interviews. “ _You take the wife everywhere. Unusual, even for international chess players,_ ” Smirnov asks rather than states, tracing a despicable finger over her little frame.

Vasily breathes out carefully, dispelling all of his impudent anger before he responds. “ _She interprets for me. Her English is better than mine_ ,” he explains, gazing at the top photo, capturing the two of them a year ago in Paris at the press conference. Some reporter had asked Miss Harmon— _Liza_ , his traitorous mind suggests—how she felt about their ultimately disastrous rematch, and she had shocked him with her display of Russian. He remembers how he unconsciously leant forward, as if by doing so he could vanish the fire lit and churning under his stomach, and the half-smile of pleasure he could not hide. Now, he is glad that only Sonya noticed, for a photo of such a reaction could be ruinous in the Kremlin’s hands.

So distracted is he by the memories of the Grand Prix in France that he nearly misses the Colonel’s smug next statement. “ _It is lucky that the American has been reported to be learning Russian, then._ ” The officer’s tone is unmistakable. Shocked, Vasily meets Smirmov’s eyes and forces himself not to look away at the satisfaction lurking there.

“ _I don’t understand_ ,” he begins to plead, even as his mind drifts to images he cannot bear to recount, flashes of his greatest shame, his most damning sin.

Later, when he is ensconced safely underneath the blankets in his hotel bed, he tosses and turns, tormented by the newest demand made of him, stated far more plainly the second time: “ _Make Harmon ours, by any means necessary._ ” He doesn’t particularly like to think of what means would be considered necessary, and instead steadfastly ignores the ache in his thighs to fall into a restless sleep.

—

Beth has been playing chess in Gorky Park for the better part of the afternoon when she spots Vasily Borgov standing across the street with his hands in his coat pockets, looking far too stiff for a man in such a casual position. He, she is pleased to note, regards her intently—and the force of his gaze, even from fifty metres away, makes her stomach flip in the same pleasant way it did when she looked back a few days before to see him studying her finished game with Duhamel. She feels, as she did then, that she could gorge herself on his attention, and Beth Harmon is no stranger to craving.

She swallows—hard—and returns her focus to the young man sitting across the table. The furrow in his eyebrows as he studies their game reminds her of Georgi Girev, as does his gallantry—he hurries to stand when she does, and takes her hand in his, leaning down shakily to lift her fingers inches from his mouth. “ _Thank you, Miss Harmon,_ ” he smiles, still a bit wonderstruck, as she makes to leave. “ _I am honoured to play with you today._ ”

Unbidden, she looks to Borgov. As the teen bends over her hand, Beth thinks she imagines the way Borgov’s jaw clenches, as she would like it to, but she cannot contrive the way he turns his face away. Before she loses her nerve, she tugs back on her white silk gloves and walks towards him, her heart beating in time with her hurried footsteps. “Grandmaster Borgov,” she calls as she is within hearing distance, then stutters to a stop a few paces away down the pavement.

He looks steadily at her now, as impassive as he is across a chess board, and all of a sudden, his gaze is overwhelming. Those eyes burn through her, pinning her to the pavement and stealing the words she meant to say from her mouth. How did you know where I was? is the first thing left on her mind, but she finds that she already knows the answer—an American extending their stay on Soviet soil, she thinks, cannot be entirely common. Were you watching me? she wants to ask, but lacks the courage. Instead, she settles for, “ _What brings you here?_ ” and she hardly knows the answer she is looking for, especially from a man that has not spoken more than five words to her in the last three years.

“ _My favourite tea shop is around this corner_ ,” he says neutrally, more talkative now outside the confines of the tournament. “ _Perhaps you might like to join me,_ ” he offers, extending an arm to her, and she idly wonders if all Russian men are so polite.

She would like to hesitate, play coy, but she is already breathless, quickly stepping forward and tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow, seizing the opportunity before it disappears entirely. As Borgov leads her down the street, Beth feels oddly at peace, if it were not for the way her heart threatens to beat itself out of her chest entirely. She can only hope that the man walking with her does not notice.


	2. What comes after tea? The resurrection of the dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is a pre-Revolutionary Russian joke. No necromancy in this chapter.  
> Chapter is unbetaed, and all mistakes are my own.

Tea in Russia is not quite what she expected—but then again, so is nothing else.

“The chess and the traveling, it must be exciting,” Margaret from Fairfield High had said back in Ben Snyder’s all those months ago. “It is,” Beth had responded, but even then, it felt a bit like a lie. The chess was thrilling, as it always had been, but the travel was more hours on flights bent over a magazine or a miniature board, and truly all she ever saw during her international trips were the glitzy hotels and the polished streets of shopping centres. She resolutely does not think of Mexico City (of Chapultepec Park) or, even worse, of Paris.

Moscow, ironically, feels a bit like freedom. Beth has never played a man she could not defeat, but sitting across from Vasily Borgov in a tea shop in Moscow, and between them jams and sweets instead of wooden pieces—well, it is chess, too, but new and different and liberating.

He pours the tea for her, a two-step process involving tea concentrate— _zavarka_ , he names it—and hot water. “ _After I began to win tournaments,_ ” he offers, pushing the sugar cubes in her direction, “ _I would come here with my mother._ ” Tendrils of steam drift lazily from the dark surfaces of their cups, fragrant and inviting.

Although she has not had much tea in Russia, Beth can already understand why he chooses to frequent this establishment—it truly is a wonderful brew. She tells him as much; the taste, she thinks, is improved as she watches the way his eyes seem to soften. The design on the metal surrounding the glass of her cup presses into the palms of her hands. She does not quite understand, having been accustomed to the small clay mugs in her cabinet. “ _Will you explain to me about this, Mr. Borgov?_ ” she asks, tracing her fingernail along the edge of the holder.

He raises his gaze from her fingers, and Beth thinks she catches a hint of flush on his cheeks. “ _The podstakannik? In Russia, we are traditional people. It helps with stability and the heat of the tea,_ ” Borgov tells her, gripping the handle of his own cup. He pauses and looks at Beth again, studying her closely. She watches him back. “ _And if we are to have tea together, Miss Harmon, you must call me—_ ”

“ _Vasya_ ,” she repeats, whispering it like a prayer. His mouth tilts into something pleased, and God, she wants to find all the ways that she can make him smile at her like that. When she curls her fingers around the base of her drink, the warmth of the tea, seeping through the glass and metal, grounds her even as she feels as if she could drown.

—

They walk their way back to the hotel, despite the rapidly chilling temperature after sunset. Vasily discovers that Beth has a fondness for cities at night. “ _I love walking through these streets and seeing the lights,_ ” she confesses to him outside of the tea shop, when he makes towards the bus stop at the corner and she doesn’t follow.

Of course, he cannot deny that a walk would be good for his constitution, but he finds that cannot also deny her—not when she is looking at him with such frankness. This sincerity, perhaps, is common of all Americans, given a general national tendency towards virtues falling in line with the grander ideals of happiness, liberty, and justice. It looks particularly fetching on Elizabeth Harmon, with her big eyes and deceptively delicate frame.

“ _They love you_ ,” he says with more gravity than he would like after they pass by a small group of her admirers, clamoring (rather obnoxiously, he thinks uncharitably) for her autograph. “ _The people of Moscow_ ,” he clarifies. She has already taken hold of his arm again, and perhaps he doesn’t mind the press of people against him as long as it is only her. “ _Is it like this in America?_ ”

She laughs, a bright happy sound that matches the click of her boots against the road. “ _Chess in America… it is nothing like chess in Russia. Last year, I played the US Championship at a small university with plastic pieces._ ” She shakes her head, but he thinks it is more in mock despondency than any true feeling.

“ _Perhaps it will be different when you return,_ ” Vasily says anyway. “ _Now that you have a win against—_ ”

“ _You?_ ” She laughs again, looking up at him impishly, and places her other hand just above his elbow, stepping closer to him. He nods, unable to begrudge her the victory, well-fought and well-earned, even if it stings his pride. “ _Maybe so. I hear the President wants to play me when I return._ ”

“ _And will you go?_ ”

The movement of her shrug is slightly awkward with the drag of her coat against his. “ _I need to go back to Kentucky and pay my friend back for the money she loaned me to get here,_ ” she tells him and grimaces. “ _Of course, I was supposed to be funded by this Christian group, but they wanted me to say many things that I did not want to say. So I didn’t, and gave them their money back._ ” Beth glances at him, searching his face for shock, perhaps, or even disapproval.

He had been stunned when he was told this the night before—what sort of government would not support their chess champion?—and he attempts his best approximation of that feeling, all too aware of how unnatural it may look on his face, but she has already looked away.

They walk by a church, its structure still sharp and geometric despite slowly falling into disrepair after a long period of closure. Beth pulls them to a stop, leaning forward to study the signage on the gate. “ _They said you were a country of Godless communists._ ”

“ _I suppose we are_ ,” he admits, thinking of the many religious houses destroyed under the Kremlin. He has never spared much thought to them, and wonders where this means he stands in the American eye.

“ _It doesn’t matter to me_ ,” she responds, gripping his arm tighter. “ _I am a chess player._ ”

—

Beth hears her name called in a familiar American tone the second they step into the warmth of the hotel lobby.

Her State Department escort is the last person she would like to talk to right now, and she had forgotten about him entirely, hoping perhaps that he had simply left without her. Vasya makes to step away from her, and something inside her screams in protest. She keeps her hold on his arm, and by the way he stills, he must not disapprove too heavily of her presumption.

“Harmon,” Booth repeats, and he is clearly about to lecture her when his eyes slip to where she has linked arms with Vasya. The considering look he gives her is almost worse; Beth is forcibly reminded of his suggestion that the Russians—and more specifically Borgov—might want to send her a signal.

If any of them had wanted to do such a thing, she thinks, surely they would not have invited her for tea and indulged her desire to walk back in the frigid cold. She wants to explain the obviousness of it all to Booth the same way she might have explained the strength of a move to Harry Beltik, but she does not.

Instead, she tells him that she would like to stay in Moscow a little longer.

He blinks at her steadily, and to her surprise, he caves. Perhaps it is because of the man standing next to her—fighting her would not be a message he’d like to send to the Soviets—but he nods, if a bit tightly. “We will leave the day after the new year, he tells her while handing her the key to her room. Our country would like to see you home.”

“I understand,” she responds, for she does: another four days is likely as long as she could stay without the newspapers in the States painting her as a communist sympathizer.

Booth looks at Borgov again, and although he seems loath to leave her with the Russian, he also does not protest as they make for their rooms, leaving him standing in the lobby.

All the players in the tournament must be on the same floor, she discovers when she finally lets go of Vasily’s arm to press her floor number and finds the button already lit up—perhaps he did see her in the hallway the night of the adjournment with Luchenko. When Beth turns to ask him, she finds that he is studying her again, perhaps trying to decode the conversation she had with Booth, and she loses the nerve completely. There is a ringing in her ears, and her white coat suddenly feels too warm. She fumbles slightly with the buttons, and wraps her cold hand around the back of her neck.

To her relief, the tension dissipates when they walk into the hallway. Still, her cheeks flush as she struggles to open her hotel door, his gaze hot on the back of her neck. She chances a glance back at him when she finally succeeds, the heavy wood pushing back into a darkened room.

“ _Your Russian is very good, Miss Harmon,_ ” he says with a curious lilt to his mouth before she can say anything.

Miss Harmon, after all this? Perhaps she had overstepped, then, been too familiar—then she realises. “ _Vasya_ ”—she steps closer to him, unbidden—“ _call me Beth. Or Liza. Whatever you prefer._ ”

He smiles again—a quick flash of something pleased—and takes hold of her hand, lifting their fingers to his mouth. It is over before she knows it, but she cannot stop a gasp at the feeling of his breath, warm against her skin. “ _Good night, Lizaveta,_ ” he murmurs.

She is not sure whether it is the way that he forms the vowels too low to be properly English or his enunciation of the consonants in her full name, but she steps forward to kiss his cheek and misses, catching the corner of his mouth.

He pulls away and looks at her, blue eyes shocked—and Beth flees, stepping into the safety of her room and slamming the door. Then she is sinking, sinking with her back against the wall, dizzy and her fist against her burning lips.


	3. Again? Again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A virtual round of applause for the fantastic Lirael77, who betaed this chapter. It would not have been nearly as fantastic without them, and I cannot possibly give enough thanks.  
> In other news, I am quite possibly entirely wicked. It is the thought of my own embarrassment that keeps this work at the rating it is, but we shall see once everything develops! :)  
> THIS IS A CONTENT WARNING for mild suicidal ideation, although I don't think of Beth as actively suicidal--death seems to haunt her, and with both maternal figures in her life having died while she was still very young, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that she might herself be preoccupied with the idea of death.

Beth startles awake to a darkened room.

She rolls over to flick on the lamp, her arm protesting with a series of sharp tingles from where it was trapped under her head, and surveys her room in the dim light: her coat draped over the desk chair, and the rest of her clothes littered on the ground from when she had pulled them off hurriedly the night before, fell into bed, thought of Vasya and slid her hands, down, down—

Her cheeks flush hot and she goes to turn on the water for her bath, feeling warm and sticky despite having kicked off the heavy blankets sometime after she fell asleep.

As she waits for the tub to fill, Beth pulls a Chesterfield from the pack, lighting it by the window and pushing the glass panes out for some much needed fresh air. Her bare skin pebbles in the wind that comes rushing in—but she closes her eyes, tilts her head back, and allows the clarity of the cold to seep into her skin, dulling the impact of the crueler drafts with the smoke in her lungs.

The lit edge of the cigarette has edged perilously close to her fingers by the time her bath is ready. She climbs into the warm embrace of the water, frowning as she drops the stub and hears it fizzle against the wet tiled floor. Unsalvageable, then. She slides her back down the edge of the tub until her hair and face are entirely covered, and then breathes out slowly, thinking of Mexico City—this was the sort of thing that she might have liked to do then, back when the sting of her defeat and the cutting edge of grief was so strong. She would have sunk into that gorgeous bath, with its glass panes and smooth tiling and lush flora—the young chess prodigy, gone mad with loss. But then she had thought of how long it might have taken for someone to find her, bloated and grotesque, and how the papers would describe her downfall, and she chose instead to spend the remainder of the night plotting how to purchase as many tranquilizers as she could before her departing flight. She nearly drowned herself again in Paris, but her head and limbs were useless with drink—then in the morning, some Frenchman knocked on her door and to her disappointment, she found that she had not, after all.

But she is in Moscow now, crossing her arms over her chest and resting her hands on her shoulders. She is invincible and magnificent, a marvel to behold. She could die now, in this simple tub in the austere elegance of her hotel room and it would be a tragedy rather than a scandal. Yet she wonders again who would find her—

The telephone rings distantly in the next room. Vasya! she thinks and opens her eyes, clenching them back shut when the soap stings. She fumbles blindly out of the bath, nearly tripping over her slippers and dripping water over the carpet as she reaches for the phone.

It is not Vasily, but the front desk. “Miss Harmon,” the man says in hesitant English. “We have Mr. Luchenko on the line for you.”

She moves the phone away from her mouth and sighs, rubbing away the suds clinging to her face. “Yeah, okay,” she says into the receiver. As she waits through the dull buzz of the dial, Beth reaches for the towel on its hook and wraps it around herself tightly, lifting the edge to dry the water droplets that landed on the desk and her chessboard.

“Miss Elizabeth!” Luchenko greets her brightly, his voice made staticky through the call. “Did you think you could hide from me? I heard you were still in Moscow!”

She laughs in spite of herself, her mood lifted by his cheerful tone. “It was too beautiful to leave just yet,” she confesses to him. “I had to stay and see more of the city.”

“Well, you must come to play with the team today,” he tells her. “Everyone is here.” Luchenko pauses, and she hears a faint voice in the background. When he speaks again, his voice is a bit quieter, with a tone she cannot quite decipher. “They’ll want to see you again before you leave.”

Beth can admit to herself that she is rather curious to see the inner workings of the great Soviet chess machine—but the idea of walking directly into the lions’ den puts her on edge. “Are you sure?” she asks him, pulling on the coiled phone line apprehensively.

“Ah, but I insist!” comes the reply. He starts listing off an address before she has time to truly mull over her decision, and by the time that he hangs up the phone, he has extracted a promise from Beth to at least come and visit.

She tucks the black king in her pocket before she leaves.

—

Vasily walks back into Luchenko’s apartment expecting the same low hum of voices discussing plays over chessboards, and certainly not a distinctive and all-too-familiar laugh. His suspicions are only confirmed when he sees the bright white of her coat draped across the back of the sofa, and the highly pleased look on Dimitri’s face as he beckons Vasily into the kitchen, where Liza Harmon is sitting across a chessboard from the young Georgi Girev, smiling as she captures his white knight.

It’ll be mate in five moves, he realises as he looks over their board—and it looks like Girev recognises it too, for he tips over his king and shakes his head ruefully, a blush high on his cheeks. Vasily realises with a start that this must be why he had so often come upon the teen studying his English textbook—the way that he avoids the American’s eyes as she offers him a handshake is a familiar hallmark of youthful infatuation. Borgov does not enjoy the spectacle as much as Luchenko does, for the former world champion is practically vibrating with glee as he watches the youth awkwardly navigate his way out around her chair.

Vasily too is about to excuse himself from the room entirely when her eyes meet his over her own cup. “ _Vasya!_ ” she says, flickering her eyes away from him as she sets her drink down on the table.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can feel the way that Luchenko—the crafty old tiger—raises his eyebrows as the sound of the diminutive falls from her lips. He resists the urge to flee, and instead leans solidly against the counter as he takes the opportunity to study the woman—she has chosen the green velvet dress today, and it compliments the way her red hair rests upon the curve of her cheek. She is a vision—and now if only she would look at him rather than fidgeting with the pieces on the board. “ _How about a game of blitz_?” she offers finally, and when Luchenko jolts suddenly in surprise, Vasily takes the opportunity to slide into the seat across from hers.

“ _Her Russian is very good_ ,” he says to his former instructor, but Vasily is looking directly as Liza—and he therefore receives the pleasure of watching the way her cheeks blush and her hands tremble as she offers him the choice between two pawns.

He plays white, and he is left blinking at the board when she has him pinned in under 90 seconds. “ _Again_?” she offers with a cruel, tempting smile when he looks up at her with wide eyes. So she has caught on to his game, after all, and intends to make him pay.

They rearrange the pieces and rotate the board—in the interest of fairness, he tells her. She beats him again, and again, and although he manages a victory over her once, she wins the rest of their seven games. It is not until he leans back, rubbing his jaw and staring at the aftermath on the board, that he realises that they have attracted an audience.

“ _No one has done that to Borgov in years_ ,” Laev tells her with awe in his voice, and soon, the entire room is applauding for her, some reaching out to shake her hand enthusiastically.

He thinks he ought to be a bit more upset over his losses, but he is mesmerised by the way that victory brightens the red of her hair and brings a glow to her cheeks as she smiles brightly at him. A goddess, he thinks as she is led into the living room and pulled into a number of conversations, among her people.

And he wonders if she might stay.


	4. lights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, this has taken me so long--life has simply caught up to me over the last month, and I hope to have more frequent postings from now on. Once again, a thank you to my wonderful beta Lirael77 for putting up with my silliness.  
> (I have also gone back and updated the last few chapters... I decided upon a new format for dialogue, so I'm really very sorry if it sends too many notifications.)

The Soviet team, she discovers, is far larger than she could have ever imagined—although most of them live far from Moscow, they came to the invitational, drawn by the promise of exciting matches and the possibility of more casual games afterwards. Luchenko takes on the task of introducing Beth to the players who cycle in and out of the apartment, careful to use mostly English in the conversations including her. She knows some of the men from the matches she studied, and others from tournaments—she recognises Viktor Korchnoi from Mexico City, and when she shakes his hand, she reminds herself that she is different from the teen that he so carelessly called a drunk in the elevator. She proves it too, when he invites her to one of the many chess boards and receives a demonstration of her much improved defensive skills.

Although Beth happily spends the afternoon playing chess, she is equally glad when the numbers dwindle later in the afternoon. Georgi is one of the last to go, leaving only when his father arrives in the middle of her rematch with Luchenko. “ _Will I see you before I leave?_ ” she asks as he stands.

“ _I am going home to Kazan, and it is too far away to visit._ ” He offers her his hand, and she shakes it. “ _Maybe we will meet at Interzonal._ ”

World Champion at sixteen, she remembers. She is standing in his way, she knows, and smiles even as the welcome flare of competitiveness flares deep inside her. Besides, he is just a boy—“ _If you ever come to America, I still haven’t been to a drive-in,_ ” she offers, looking up at him through her lashes. Georgi blushes, avoiding both her eyes and those of Vasily, sitting beside her on the couch. 

“ _You should not tease the boy so_ ,” Luchenko tells her without much heat after the pair has left. Vasya is shaking his head too, but both are smiling, so Beth finds it hard to feel properly chastised. “ _He loves you almost as much as Elizabeth Taylor_.”

“ _Elizabeth Taylor doesn’t play chess_ ,” Vasily disagrees. “ _And Liza has beaten him three times today._ ” The sound of her name is warm and soft in his mouth, and the heat of him close. His knee is barely inches from hers, and she takes a drink of her tea to distract herself from the thought of pressing her leg against his.

Luchenko laughs and finally moves his king away from her check. “ _Yes, it is hard to forget a loss to Miss Harmon._ ” The two Soviets share a look that Beth cannot quite decipher—at first, she thinks it is commiseration, but Dmitri looks a bit too pleased and Vasily crosses one leg over the other, not quite looking at her. Both of them return their eyes to the board as she picks up a rook and moves her queen into its place. Luchenko shakes his head ruefully and resigns, patting her hand kindly. “ _Miss Harmon, this will have to be another for me to remember._ ” He leans back into his seat, swinging his feet up on the empty armchair beside them and closing his eyes. Beth wonders if she ever will take a defeat so casually.

“ _Where will you go now?_ ” Vasily asks as he helps her reset the board, the sleeve of his shirt brushing up against her hand as he places the pawns back into their rows.

She shrugs, adjusting the pieces as she thinks. “ _I would like to go shopping,_ ” she says blithely. “ _I walked by some places, but I didn’t have time to go in._ ”

Luchenko snores in his chair, if a bit exaggeratedly. The two look at each other, Beth biting down a giggle, and take it for the dismissal that it is. “ _He always does this_ ,” Vasya tells her sotto voce as they put on their coats.

She looks back at the sleeping man, glasses still on. “ _Why_?”

Vasily opens the door, a hand on her back as he ushers her out. “ _He likes to shock people. At his age and with his career, no one will dare say anything_.”

They walk down to the ground floor together, and pause at the front door, allowing an older couple to pass by them into the stairwell, their clothing decidedly simple in the traditional Russian style. “ _You want to go shopping_?” he asks. “ _Soviet fashion is not very glamorous_.”

She shrugs as they step outside into the chill of the late afternoon. “ _That’s okay_.” She thinks she sees Booth waiting in a car on the other side of the street—the government agent must have followed her here earlier in the afternoon, although he allowed her relative privacy in exchange for a promise for Beth to be on her best behaviour (no defecting to USSR, in other words, or running off to different areas of Moscow without prior notice).

Vasily must see Booth too, for the sleek black vehicle is rather conspicuous on the otherwise pedestrian street, but he does not look the least bit surprised. _“When are you going?”_

“ _Tomorrow, maybe._ ” Beth responds. She looks down at the ground, and back up at Vasya. “ _Why_?” 

He looks at her. “ _Would you like a guide?_ ”

—

Sofya Borgova walks into the hotel at half past ten to find Elizabeth Harmon, impeccably dressed and studying a chessboard in the hotel lobby. With the trained instinct of a woman who has spent the majority of her life watching and being watched, she looks first at the man in a suit sitting a discreet three tables away from the young chess player, nursing a cup of coffee and surveying the room in the way all American agents are taught. She keeps him in her line of sight as she taps Harmon on the shoulder and greets her; he (Mr. John William Booth, CIA, 48—Sofya has had his file since his second visit to the USSR, accompanying another young American talent) stares as she presses her cheek against the girl’s in the French style.

She notices Harmon’s perfume is different from the one the girl had worn in Paris—darker, more musky—and the realisation makes her smile, as does the way the American’s hazel eyes dart away, as if looking for someone (Sofya’s husband, perhaps, as if she was concealing the man behind her back) then back to her when the man fails to materialise. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Miss Harmon,” Sofya says, then lowers her voice, leaning in confidentially. “ _Vasily has told me so much about you_.” In response, Harmon blushes and stutters. Infatuated, then, she thinks with satisfaction. All these geniuses, and so blind.

“Yes,” the American says, slipping back into her native tongue. “ _Yes_ ,” she repeats in Russian, “ _it is good to meet you too, Mrs. Borgova._ ” Her accent is pleasant, if a bit off-textbook, but certainly better than it was the last time she heard it in France.

Her cab has already left by the time they step outside of the hotel, and their new driver keeps glancing back at the two of them in the rearview mirror as he drives. The car stops just outside of Glávnyj Universálnyj Magazín in the Red Square—the girl fumbles with her little purse and pulls out her wallet before Sofya can protest. She is thinking about leaning forward and wrapping her fingers around the girl’s wrist when her eyes catch on a little cutout image of a very familiar face, the photo dislodged by the removal of the rubles needed to pay for their fare. The American notices the picture peeking out and shoves it back into its place with a sharp movement. 

“Let’s go,” she suggests, waiting for the driver to come around to open the door. She offers her hand to Harmon, who hesitates for only a second before slipping her gloved fingers against Sonya’s palm. She smiles, something gentle and covert, and runs her thumb quickly and entirely deliberately across the girl’s knuckles as she rises from the car.

Booth must have warned his charge against marveling too much and too publicly at Russian sights, but Harmon soon abandons such reservation as she pauses every few steps, admiring the domed glass ceiling and the beautiful designs on the stone galleries. “ _What a beautiful place_ ,” the American marvels when they exit the building hours later. The paper wrapping around her new dresses from various shops crinkle against their coats as the two are pushed together in the busy crowd.

“ _Yes,_ _very beautiful_ ,” Sonya agrees, looking at the girl’s profile in the setting sun. There are too many people around them, and therefore too many ears for what she has come to say. “ _Vasily tells me you love the lights of the city at night. Perhaps you might like to see the New Year’s tree with me?_ ” she suggests, already moving to a quieter area.

Harmon follows her obligingly, falling back next to her as they walk over to the Kremlin. It is in the shadow of the Yolka tree that she turns to face her young companion. “ _Do you know the name Nadezhda Alliluyeva?_ ” The American shakes her head, distracted by the hanging ornaments and the glittering lights. “ _She died when I was just two years old—her body was displayed on the upper levels of that store until she was moved to the cemetery. She shot herself twice, but that is a state secret._ ”

“ _Why are you telling me this?_ ” Harmon asks, stiff and no longer so distracted. The full force of the girl’s piercing gaze is on her now, but Sofya is not moved—in her nearly four decades of life, she has had many people stare her down, and many more intimidating than a young American twenty years her junior. 

“ _Beauty hides many dark secrets._ ” She takes hold of one of the younger woman’s hands, and brushes a strand of red hair behind her ear. The girl trembles as Sonya’s fingers brush against her cheek, and not only because of the cold. “ _You are very beautiful, Miss Harmon. And this hair, so vibrant. Nadezhda’s daughter—I was friends with her when we were in school, and her hair was not nearly so red._ ”

“ _What happened to her?_ ” Harmon half-asks, half-demands, raising her free hand to move her hair back to where it was, draping around her face.

Sofya does not pretend to misunderstand. “ _Svetlana Stalina defected to the United States last year._ ” She studies the girl, catalogues the sharp intake of breath and the way the girl’s eyes widen and eyelashes flutter. “ _Truly, you did not know?_ ”

“ _I am not very interested in politics,_ ” Harmon confesses, and looks away. A young man and wife with their toddler are slowly approaching them as they walk their way around the tree. The father picks up his child and points at a glittering ornament, laughing as the boy attempts to reach for it.

“ _Miss Harmon, it does not matter if you are not interested in politics, but you must pay attention to it. How long have you wanted my husband?_ ” The girl looks back at her, blush heavy on her cheeks, and is already shaking her head. Sofya cuts her off before she can deny it further. “ _You do not need to lie to me, I can see the truth in your eyes. I do not even mind, but know that it is death to love a Russian man._ ”

“ _You have not died,_ ” responds Harmon, obstinatation written in the set of her jaw.

  
“ _A part of me has._ ” Sonya looks down at their entwined hands, at the American’s fingers—too long, and lacking the familiar callouses of a violinist—and pulls away just as the family walks past them. “ _Come. I will take you back to your hotel, Miss Harmon_.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm typically a poet, but I am ever so excited to explore a more short story-esque genre. This is my first ever fic on this website, so comments are highly encouraged. I absolutely love love love Beth/Vasily, and I'm delighted to be able to contribute to it here.


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